Mike Ashley's Sports Direct group, traditionally known for its pile it high and sell it cheap approach, has taken a majority share in two of the UK's most prominent high-end fashion chains.

The Newcastle United owner's firm has paid £7m for its 80 per cent stake in luxury retailer Cruise and branded fashion business USC.

The group has bought the stakes in the two businesses from Sir Tom Hunter, who had been involved with USC since 2004, but only purchased Cruise from administration in December for a reputed £5m.

Sir Tom will retain a 20 per cent shareholding and remain as chairman of both businesses.

It is understood that football shirts and budget leisure lines will not find their way into the two store chains anytime soon, with both Sports Direct and Sir Tom stressing yesterday that they will form a newly-established premium and luxury lifestyle division of the group.

The management teams of both Cruise, which has two stores in Newcastle, and USC, which has stores in Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Sunderland and Gateshead MetroCentre, will be retained and the individual brands will retain their autonomy.

In addition North-East based designer fashion chain Van Mildert will continue to handle all the buying for Cruise, a role it took over as part of a joint venture with Sir Tom when he bought the company.

Sports Direct will immediately pump an additional £20m into its new division and push ahead with the opening of two new USC stores in the south west later this year.

Sir Tom, who has a rumoured net worth of more than a £1 billion, said the deal would "transform the prospects for both USC and Cruise at a time of extraordinary turbulence in the High Street."

Cruise stocks brands such as Armani and Vivienne Westwood, while USC stocks the likes of Diesel, but surprisingly the luxury end of the market has been one of the few areas of growth for shops over the past year, with companies such as Burberry and Mulberry posting bumper profits while those in the middle ground have suffered.

A spokesman for Sir Tom said: "We saw a huge opportunity in working with Sports Direct in terms of growing the business substantially.

"Sir Tom has deep pockets, but Sports Direct has even deeper pockets.

"We looked at the Cruise business once we got in and saw a real opportunity to grow it. This is a way of executing that growth."

The Scottish entrepreneur founded the Sports Division chain, which he later sold to JJB, and his spokesman added: "Sir Tom and Mike Ashley go back a long, long way."

The spokesman said the day to day running of the firms will not change and there would be no "migration" of products between the premium stores and the traditional sports shops.

Sports Direct was said to be "excited" at its move into a new market, which comes after it spent the last year moving away from its traditional image of shops bursting with bargain goods to a more structured layout in its stores.

Dave Forsey, chief executive of Sports Direct said: "We are pleased to be taking this opportunity to work with Tom and his teams in the premium and luxury sector of the market.

"While USC and Cruise will remain independent of Sports Direct, we will support the businesses with our operational expertise."

USC currently has 38 stores across the UK and turnover in the 12 months to 30 January 2011 was £70m. Cruise has 10 stores in the UK and an annual turnover of around £20m.